For other persons named William Davies, see William Davies

For the fictional character in the BBC Scotland soap, River City, see Billy Davies

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Billy Davies
Personal information
Full name	William McIntosh Davies
Date of birth	31 May 1964 (1964-05-31) (age 45)
Place of birth	Glasgow, Scotland
Playing position	Midfielder (retired)
Club information
Current club	Nottingham Forest (Manager)
Youth career
1980–1981	Manchester United
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1981–1984 1986–1987 1987–1990 1990 1990–1993 1993–1998	Rangers Elfsborg St Mirren Leicester City Dunfermline Athletic Motherwell Total	013 0(1) 018 0(1) 074 0(5) 006 0(0) 104 (10) 116 0(9) 331 (26)
Teams managed
1998–2001 2004–2006 2006–2007 2009–	Motherwell Preston North End Derby County Nottingham Forest
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

William McIntosh "Billy" Davies (born 31 May 1964) is a Scottish football manager, former player and current manager of Nottingham Forest.

[edit] Playing career

As a schoolboy Davies was associated with Manchester United and was offered a contract by then manager Dave Sexton, but left without ever playing a first-team game.

He started his professional playing career at the Scottish club Rangers F.C. where he spent six years before a brief spell with Swedish team IF Elfsborg. He later played for St Mirren, Leicester City and Dunfermline Athletic before finishing his playing career with Motherwell in his native Scotland.

[edit] Management career

[edit] Motherwell

Davies went on to manage Motherwell and he took them to the brink of European Football but was subsequently sacked after poor form saw Motherwell gain just 3 points from 7 matches at the start of the 2001–02 season.

[edit] Preston North End

Following his dismissal as Motherwell boss, Davies moved south to England and took on the role of assistant manager to former Scotland national coach Craig Brown at Preston North End. Following Brown's departure in 2004 he was installed as caretaker manager ^[1] before being given the job on a permanent basis.

Davies took Preston to the brink of the Premier League via the play-offs in May 2005 but lost in the final. Despite a difficult start to the 2005–06 season, Preston went on an unbeaten run, from September until February, which saw them go 22 games unbeaten - equaling the record set in the 1888 season by the double-winning 'Invincibles' side, leading some sections of the media to dub them 'The New Invincibles'.^{[citation needed]} This helped the club qualify for the play-offs for a second successive season although Davies and Preston again failed to win promotion when they were knocked out by Leeds United after losing the semi-final second leg.

Davies's success at Deepdale saw him linked with a number of other jobs. He was interviewed for the position at Charlton Athletic when it was announced that Alan Curbishley would be stepping down after 15 years as manager, but Davies was unsuccessful and the job went to Iain Dowie instead.^[2] Davies then accepted an offer to manage Preston's Championship rivals Derby County in June 2006.^[3]

[edit] Derby County

In Davies's first season as Derby manager he led them to third place in the league and then won the play-offs after defeating Southampton in the semi-finals and then West Bromwich Albion at Wembley Stadium, ending Derby's five year absence from the top flight. Despite signing a one year extension to his contract, Derby struggled in the Premier League, gaining only six points from fourteen games. After criticising Derby's board for lack of investment, Davies left Pride Park by mutual consent in November 2007, with the club bottom of the league. Whilst some critics believed that Davies was a victim of his own success and feel that he was too successful in his first season at Pride Park,^[4] others citied his tactical inefficiences at top flight level, poor man management,^[5] poor big money signings (including £3m Claude Davis, who has been described as the club's "worst major signing"^[6]) and suggested he engineered his own departure, in the form of an outspoken rant against the board, in which he admitted his own signings weren't good enough",^[7] to avoid having a relegation on his c.v.

Davies was later linked with the managerial positions of the Scottish national team after Alex McLeish stepped down to take charge of Birmingham City^[8] (he would eventually withdraw his interest from this post),^[9] Leicester City (after Gary Megson defected to Bolton Wanderers), as well as Dundee and Hibernian. He was also considered a candidate to become assistant manager to Everton boss David Moyes, a role which came vacant when Alan Irvine left to take charge of Davies's old club Preston.^[10][11]

[edit] Nottingham Forest

On 31 December 2008, it was announced on the official Nottingham Forest website that the club was in negotiations with Davies to succeed the recently sacked Colin Calderwood.^[12] He was confirmed as their manager on 1 January 2009.^[13]

In his first interview as Nottingham Forest manager, Davies stated that he wants to "beef up the squad" but will not be "rushed into any rash decisions."^{[citation needed]}

On Monday 27 April 2009, Billy Davies experienced his "proudest moment" in his managerial career, when Norwich City's 2-0 loss at home to Reading secured Forest their place in the Championship for the 09/10 season.

[edit] Managerial honours

[edit] Club awards

Preston North End

• Football League Championship Playoffs
  • Runners-up (1): 2004–05

Derby County

• Football League Championship Playoffs
  • Winners (1): 2006–07

[edit] Individual awards

• SPL Manager of the Month (1): November 2000

[edit] Statistics

[edit] Manager

Team	Nat	From	To	Record
				G	W	D	L	Win %
Motherwell		14 October 1998	18 September 2001	123	41	31	51	33.33
Preston North End		29 August 2004	2 June 2006	101	45	35	21	44.55
Derby County		2 June 2006	26 November 2007	69	31	14	24	44.93
Nottingham Forest		1 January 2009	Present	41	17	12	12	56.76
Total				320	128	87	105	40

As of 4 October 2009.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Billy Davies management career stats at Soccerbase